152 research outputs found
Partitioning Perfect Graphs into Stars
The partition of graphs into "nice" subgraphs is a central algorithmic
problem with strong ties to matching theory. We study the partitioning of
undirected graphs into same-size stars, a problem known to be NP-complete even
for the case of stars on three vertices. We perform a thorough computational
complexity study of the problem on subclasses of perfect graphs and identify
several polynomial-time solvable cases, for example, on interval graphs and
bipartite permutation graphs, and also NP-complete cases, for example, on grid
graphs and chordal graphs.Comment: Manuscript accepted to Journal of Graph Theor
On Computing the Average Distance for Some Chordal-Like Graphs
The Wiener index of a graph G is the sum of all its distances. Up to renormalization, it is also the average distance in G. The problem of computing this parameter has different applications in chemistry and networks. We here study when it can be done in truly subquadratic time (in the size n+m of the input) on n-vertex m-edge graphs. Our main result is a complete answer to this question, assuming the Strong Exponential-Time Hypothesis (SETH), for all the hereditary subclasses of chordal graphs. Interestingly, the exact same result also holds for the diameter problem. The case of non-hereditary chordal subclasses happens to be more challenging. For the chordal Helly graphs we propose an intricate O?(m^{3/2})-time algorithm for computing the Wiener index, where m denotes the number of edges. We complete our results with the first known linear-time algorithm for this problem on the dually chordal graphs. The former algorithm also computes the median set
Counting and Sampling from Markov Equivalent DAGs Using Clique Trees
A directed acyclic graph (DAG) is the most common graphical model for
representing causal relationships among a set of variables. When restricted to
using only observational data, the structure of the ground truth DAG is
identifiable only up to Markov equivalence, based on conditional independence
relations among the variables. Therefore, the number of DAGs equivalent to the
ground truth DAG is an indicator of the causal complexity of the underlying
structure--roughly speaking, it shows how many interventions or how much
additional information is further needed to recover the underlying DAG. In this
paper, we propose a new technique for counting the number of DAGs in a Markov
equivalence class. Our approach is based on the clique tree representation of
chordal graphs. We show that in the case of bounded degree graphs, the proposed
algorithm is polynomial time. We further demonstrate that this technique can be
utilized for uniform sampling from a Markov equivalence class, which provides a
stochastic way to enumerate DAGs in the equivalence class and may be needed for
finding the best DAG or for causal inference given the equivalence class as
input. We also extend our counting and sampling method to the case where prior
knowledge about the underlying DAG is available, and present applications of
this extension in causal experiment design and estimating the causal effect of
joint interventions
Beyond Helly graphs: the diameter problem on absolute retracts
Characterizing the graph classes such that, on -vertex -edge graphs in
the class, we can compute the diameter faster than in time is an
important research problem both in theory and in practice. We here make a new
step in this direction, for some metrically defined graph classes.
Specifically, a subgraph of a graph is called a retract of if it is
the image of some idempotent endomorphism of . Two necessary conditions for
being a retract of is to have is an isometric and isochromatic
subgraph of . We say that is an absolute retract of some graph class
if it is a retract of any of which it is an
isochromatic and isometric subgraph. In this paper, we study the complexity of
computing the diameter within the absolute retracts of various hereditary graph
classes. First, we show how to compute the diameter within absolute retracts of
bipartite graphs in randomized time. For the
special case of chordal bipartite graphs, it can be improved to linear time,
and the algorithm even computes all the eccentricities. Then, we generalize
these results to the absolute retracts of -chromatic graphs, for every fixed
. Finally, we study the diameter problem within the absolute retracts
of planar graphs and split graphs, respectively
Antimatroids and Balanced Pairs
We generalize the 1/3-2/3 conjecture from partially ordered sets to
antimatroids: we conjecture that any antimatroid has a pair of elements x,y
such that x has probability between 1/3 and 2/3 of appearing earlier than y in
a uniformly random basic word of the antimatroid. We prove the conjecture for
antimatroids of convex dimension two (the antimatroid-theoretic analogue of
partial orders of width two), for antimatroids of height two, for antimatroids
with an independent element, and for the perfect elimination antimatroids and
node search antimatroids of several classes of graphs. A computer search shows
that the conjecture is true for all antimatroids with at most six elements.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure
Characterizing intersection graphs of substars of a star by forbidden subgraphs
Starlike graphs are the intersection graphs of substars of a star. We describe characterizations by forbidden subgraphs for starlike graphs and for a special subclass of it
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